Canada and Russia play a women’s ice hockey game with a mask | Sports

The masks were the protagonists of the strange women’s hockey match that the Canadian and Russian teams disputed this Monday in the Wukesong pavilion, in Beijing, during the Winter Olympics which are taking place in the Chinese capital. The game started more than an hour late – at one point its indefinite postponement was announced – amid confusion from those present over the reason for the wait. It was later revealed that the Canadian players had not received their opponents’ coronavirus test results and wanted to wait for them.

“Russia’s results this morning weren’t ready yet,” Canadian striker Natalie Spooner said in comments picked up by Reuters. “I know over the past few days they had had some positives, and we wanted to make sure their results came back and it was safe to play.” Last week, six Russian players, including captain Olga Sosina, tested positive in daily covid tests carried out on athletes and the thousands of people inside the bubble in Olympic areas.

The International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) issued a statement after the game, in which it did not specify the causes of the delay and only indicated that it was due to reasons of safety and health of the players.

The match finally started, but athletes from both teams wore masks under their helmets. Something that had not been seen so far at the Games, despite the strict measures imposed by the organizers to prevent the spread of covid. “As a precaution and concern for the health and safety of the players, the Federation has agreed that the participating teams will play with their masks on,” the statement read.

The Russian team – which, like the rest of the delegation, plays under the name of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), due to sanctions for doping cases – took off their masks in the third half of the match, after having learned that everyone’s test results were negative. The Canadian players continued to wear the masks until the end of the game. “We thought we had already played two halves with protection and once put on we could be extremely careful in the last half and continue until the end,” Spooner said.

Playing with a mask all the time hasn’t hurt American athletes. The end result was a clear 1-6 in favor of the Canadian team, which will face the United States on Tuesday for the leadership of its group.

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